Never Ending Movie Carnival
Never Ending Movie Carnival
Blind movie review: A decent remake marked with– earnest performances
What: Blind – Sonam Kapoor Ahuja’s OTT avatar as a blind woman is a remake of the 2011 Korean film with the same title that lacks emotional heft.
Blind movie review
Hindi cinema audience is carpet bombed with remakes these days. Any Spanish or Korean thriller has spawned a Bollywood remake which lands on OTT in a jiffy – the problem is, filtering out the good ones.
Blind - starring Sonam Kapoor as the physically impaired protagonist, is a remake of the 2011 Korean film with the same title which was also remade in Tamil -Netrikann (streaming on Disney+ Hotstar since 2021). I don’t understand what the film was doing till date when its shooting was wrapped up almost 2.5 years back!
Not to undermine the sheer familiarity that the film breeds, it works decently at two levels – The thrill and tension offered by the maniacal serial killer on the prowl, played by Purab Kohli (no, it’s not a spoiler!) and Sonam’s resilient and restrained ‘blind’ avatar trying to rise above her disability. Its believable heroism showered by the female protagonist is a major factor that draws your attention.
Consumed by a guilt of unwittingly killing her brother in a horrific road accident and losing her eyesight, Gia (Sonam Kapoor Ahuja), former police officer, almost becomes a victim to the predator who preys on girls and approaches the law to nab him. Gia’s remarkable wisdom and sensory astuteness impresses the officer investigator Prithvi (played by Vinay Pathak) who relies on her hunches more than the other witness, Nikhil (Subham Saraf). Along with Gia’s pet Elsa, they embark on the mission to nab the antagonist.
Director Shome Makhija builds tension effectively and the setting of Glasgow comes to his rescue in moments of dullness. The production design is impressive – Sujoy Ghosh is one of the film’s producers.
What lacks here is the emotional heft – Sonam, seen after a hiatus, struggles to infuse a sense of empathy through her characters. It requires a kind of intuitive understanding to portray such roles and her stab misses it. Vinay Pathak is rather very fascinating with his sharp humor and comic timing. Purab Kohli is sincere and tries to elevate the weak material in hand that saddles his character arc. Lillete Dubey is criminally wasted. The English musical numbers (Clinton Cerejo) are another letdown.
I go with 3 stars out of 5 for Blind. The 2-hour film is streaming on Jio Cinema.
Ahwaan Padhee, is an IT Techie/Business Consultant by profession and a film critic/cinephile by passion, is also associated with Radio Playback as well, loves writing and conducting movie quizzes. More By Ahwaan Padhee